Emily

‘What b-awful weather,’ said Fiona, looking out of the window. ‘You really must start a family very soon, Emily,’ she went on. ‘It gives a completely new dimension to one’s life. I think one’s awfully selfish really until one has children.’

‘Parents,’ said Rory, ‘should always be seen and not heard.’

Punctuated by giggles and murmurs of ‘Oh Charles’ from the back, we finally reached the turrets and gables and great blackened keep of Downleesh Castle. The windows threw shafts of light on to the snow which was gathering thickly on the surrounding fir trees and yews. The usual cavalcade of terriers and labradors came pounding out of the house to welcome us. Walter Scott was dragged off protesting by a footman to be given his dinner in the kitchen.

In the dark panelled hall, great banks of holly were piled round the suits of armour, the spears and the banners. We had a drink before going upstairs. Diney, Lady Downleesh’s daughter, who’d just got engaged, fell on Fiona’s neck and they both started yapping about weddings and babies.

We were taken to our bedroom down long, draughty passages to the West Tower. In spite of a fire in the grate, it was bitterly cold.

I found when I got there that my suitcase had been unpacked and all my clothes laid out neatly on the mildewed fourposter, including an old bone of Walter Scott’s and a half-eaten bar of chocolate I had stuffed into my suitcase at the last moment. On the walls were pictures of gun-dogs coming out of the bracken, their mouths full of feathers.

I missed Walter. Sometimes in those awful long silences I had with Rory I found it a relief to jabber away to him.

‘Can he come upstairs?’ I said.

‘No,’ said Rory.

In the bookshelves was a book called A Modern Guide to Pig Husbandry. ‘Perhaps I should read it,’ I said, ‘it might give me some advice about being married to a pig,’

Across the passage were the unspeakable Frayns. They had already hogged the bathroom, and judging from the sound of splashing and giggling, it wasn’t just a bath they were having. I realized I was jealous of their happiness and involvement. I wanted Rory to start every sentence ‘Emily says’ and roar with laughter at my jokes.

I took ages over dressing, painting my face as carefully as Rory painted any of his pictures. My pink dress looked pretty sensational; I put a ruby brooch Coco had given me over the mark on the navel. It was certainly tight, too, everyone would be able to see my goose-pimples, but on the whole I was pleased with the result — it was definitely one of my on days. The only problem was that when I put on my new tights, the crotch only came up to the middle of my thighs. I gave them a tug and they split irrevocably, leaving a large hole, so I had to make do with bare legs.

I was just trying to give myself a better cleavage with Sellotape when Rory announced that he was ready. Even I, though, was unprepared for his beauty, dressed up in a dark green velvet doublet with white lace at the throat and wrists and the dark green and blue kilt of the Balniels. Pale and haughty, his eyes glittering with bad temper, he looked like something out of Kidnapped; Alan Breck Stuart or young Lochinvar coming out of the West.

‘Oh,’ I sighed. ‘You do look lovely.’

Rory grimaced and tugged at the frills at his neck.

‘I feel like Kenneth McKellar,’ he said.

‘Never mind, you’ve got exactly the right hips to wear a pleated skirt,’ I said.

Rory put a long tartan muffler thing on the dressing-table. ‘This is for you,’ he said.

‘I’m not thinking of going out in this weather,’ I said.

‘You wear it indoors,’ he said, draping it diagonally across my shoulders, ‘like this, and pin it here.’

‘But whatever for?’ I moaned.

‘It’s the Balniel tartan,’ he said evenly. ‘Married women are supposed to wear their husband’s tartan.’

‘But it completely covers up my cleavage.’

‘Just as well, you’re not at some orgy in Chelsea now,’ said Rory.

‘Do I really have to, it’s a bit Hooray for me.’

Very sulkily I arranged it; somehow tartan didn’t go with skintight pink satin, and brooches on the navel.

I wanted to fiddle with my hair and make-up a few minutes longer, but Rory was sitting on the bed, staring at me coldly, making me nervous.

‘Why don’t you go on down?’ I said.

‘I’ll wait here,’ he said.

I combed a few pink tendrils over my shoulders.

‘What made you go crazy with the cochineal?’ said Rory.

‘I thought I ought to change my image,’ I said, sourly. ‘My old one didn’t seem to be getting me very far.’

Downstairs in the huge drawing-room people were having drinks. The host and hostess stood near the door repeating the same words of welcome to new arrivals. Looking round I realized I looked better than most of the women but infinitely more tarty. Most of them were big, raw-boned deb types in very covered-up clothes, the occasional mottled purple arms were the nearest they got to decolletage. Very tall, aristocratic men in kilts stood talking in haw haw voices about getting their lochs drained and burning their grouse moors. Fishes in glass cases and mounted stags’ heads stared glassily down from the walls.

Fiona and Charles were standing near the door. She was wearing a blue dress and absolutely no eye make- up.

‘What a pretty dress,’ I said, with desperate insincerity.

‘Yes, everyone likes it,’ she said, ‘blue is Charles’ favourite colour.’

Charles was gaping at my pink hair, his mouth even more open than usual. Fiona started trying to bring Rory out about his painting.

‘Do you do all that funny abstract stuff?’ she said.

‘No,’ said Rory.

‘Some young man — he had a beard actually — painted my sister Sarah. She sat for two hours and all he had drawn after all that time were three figs and a milk bottle.’

She gave a tinkle of laughter, Rory looked at her stonily.

‘Charles paints quite beautifully too, I feel it’s such a shame his job in the City is so demanding he doesn’t have time to take painting up as a hobby — like you, Rory.’

‘Rory does not paint as a hobby,’ I said furiously, ‘it’s his profession.’ But I spoke to deaf ears, Rory had turned on his heel and gone off to get himself a drink. Charles and Fiona were suddenly shrieking at a couple who had just come into the room.

I was extremely pleased therefore that the next moment Calen Macdonald bore down on me and kissed first my hand, then my cheek, then both my bare shoulders.

‘I was just saying to Buster I wished I could see more of you,’ he said, pulling down my tartan sash and peering at my cleavage, ‘and now I have. I must say that dress is very fetching, pink looks like bare flesh if one shuts one’s eyes.’

‘Where’s Deidre?’ I said.

‘Oh, she’s stalking in Inverness.’

I giggled.

‘So I’ve got the whole evening off and I’m going to devote it entirely to you.’

Two matrons with red-veined faces stopped discussing herbaceous borders and looked at us frostily.

At that moment a voice shouted ‘Emily!’ and there was Coco, dripping with sapphires as big as gull’s eggs, wearing a glorious midnight blue dress. She was lying like Madame Recamier on a red brocade sofa, surrounded by admirers.

Rory sat at her feet.

‘I didn’t see you,’ I said, going over and kissing her.

‘You look very nice, doesn’t she, Rory,’ said Coco.

‘A bit prawn cocktail,’ said Rory.